Catching Up in the Race for Digital Transformation

It seems that digital transformation is on every CIO’s agenda for 2019. What this means varies, from leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for one company to automating key processes for another – and everything in between. But no matter what your priorities, every digital transformation initiative involves one thing: data. (And lots of it!)

In their 2019 predictions on AI usage, Forrester states, “While enterprise aspirations for AI run high, in 2019, we predict continued investments in good ol’ information architecture (IA). The tables will turn from AI to IA in the majority of firms that have already dabbled in some form of AI, as they’ll quickly realize that their irrational exuberance for AI adoption must be equally met with solid efforts on an AI-worthy data environment.”

This Race Requires Talent

In the race for digital transformation, one of the challenges many IT departments face is that they are stretched too thin. The vast majority of business leaders we talk to say they are having a hard time finding and retaining talent. Granted, that’s one of the primary reasons organizations reach out to a managed service provider like us, but the research data confirms just how widespread this problem is.

Take cybersecurity as an example. Given the massive amounts of data, much of it confidential, that companies handle these days and the highly regulated environments in which they operate, cybersecurity is an essential component of digital transformation. Yet, cybersecurity professionals are expensive. In many cities, a mid-level professional can command a salary of six figures – and that’s doesn’t include overhead.

There used to be a prevailing attitude in IT, especially in larger companies, that was often referred to as “not invented here.” These executives and IT leaders felt that no external provider could possibly do things as well as they could in-house. Even in simpler times, they spent a significant amount of their budget on IT infrastructure, people, and overhead.

However, more and more customers are outsourcing nearly all of their IT needs: infrastructure as well as other components such as disaster recovery, security, and compliance. Sometimes they’ll use the infrastructure in one of our data centers, but as often as not, they’ll want help managing a public cloud environment such as AWS, Azure, or the Google Cloud Platform.

Digital transformation is hard work, but keeping your eye on the prize can get you through even the hardest of days. We’ll end with sharing an encouraging finding from Bain & Company research:

“After comparing financial results for five categories of companies based on their degree of digital maturity, Bain found that revenues for the digital leaders grew 14 percent over the past three years, more than doubling the performance of the digital laggards in their industries. Profitability followed a similar pattern—83 percent of the leaders increased margins over that period while less than half of the industry laggards did so.”

It seems that digital transformation is paying off for those who persevere.